- Look! Look! Another YouTube video contest turns into an ad campaign! This time it's Southwest Airlines who's awarding the winner of its December contest with placement during NBA playofs in April. Are you just oozing with anticipation?
- Dial thinks it can get a piece of Axe's body spray action with the introduction of its RX Bodyspray. While Brandweek's Constantine von Hoffman thinks Axe's advertising has been "highly sophomoric," we'd choose to categorize it as highly successful. Dial has an uphill battle on this front.
- Eesh. Now we have to endure Rachael Ray in Dunkin' Donuts ads...through 2010!
- Massachusetts retailer Jordan's Furniture is offering a full refund to anyone who buys furniture before April 16 if the Red Sox win the World Series.
The music industry is insanely competitive and those hoping to get by need to have an effective shtick. Some work and others do not.
One gimmick that never seems to exhaust itself is the liberal showcasing of jugs. That's the prop Norwegian model Lene Alexandra Oien is leaning on to set off her blossoming music career. Check out her single, My Boobs are OK, and you'll get the gist. She even has an animated version of herself, a handy optical illusion Mariah Carey invented in Heartbreaker.
Word on the street is Lene had some kind of car accident, after which she stepped out of her vehicle and announced to surprised onlookers that her boobs were OK. Well, you can't really attack a chick who knows exactly what assets she brings to the table.
- Starcom has reeled in the $100 million United Airlines global media business beating OMD and Mediaedge:cia
- Rosie O'Donnell's in a tiff over the American Idol Frenchie Davis/Antonella Barba picture thing. American Idol Exec producer responds, "Without wishing to add to the obvious self-promotion of Ms. O'Donnell, I feel as though I must refute her absurd and ridiculous claims that American Idol is racist and/or weightist. Ms. O'Donnell has, once again, spoken without thought or knowledge. Viewers need only look at the show tonight to realize that American Idol constantly confirms to America that talent has nothing to do with weight or color."
- According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Internet ad spending grew 34 percent to $16.8 billion in 2006.
- If you're having trouble sleeping on those long business flights, British Airways has the solution: a soothing podcast.
- Here's a decidedly different look at outdoor advertising.
- The LAist will be rockin' during SXSW in Austin this Sunday hosting its own party at Room 710. If you're there, check it.
At this point we don't know if Rosie's trying to get attention or if she genuinely does have a problem worth noting. In any case, she recently stated that after being treated for depression post-Columbine, she now hangs upside-down for 30 minutes a day to improve her mental state.
We find it hard to believe she endures that awkward state a half-hour at a time to improve her well-being. Then again, of late she's dealing with positions far less comfortable.
PETA posts an article on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith, comparing the organization to her influence in a way that kind of makes sense but isn't immediately obvious to the casual observer: "We always thought that Anna Nicole was a perfect fit for PETA because, just like us, she not only hated cruelty to animals but also couldn't be ignored and because, no matter what people thought of her, they always had an opinion one way or another."
Touching stuff. To solidify the comparison, both were pretty good at performing stripteases for selected audiences.
It was just a matter of time before Borat got pinned a victim for his masochistic hairstyle but it turns out his case may be bigger than that, depending on whether you value the right to good hair over freedom of speech.
An annual human rights report released by Condy Rice criticizes the real Kazakhstan, listing relevant examples of human rights victims and including fictional character Borat, the woman-bashing, Jew-spooked Kazakh reporter invented by Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
It's unsurprising Borat's come across some trouble considering the president isn't too keen on Cohen's charming rendition of Kazakhstan as racist, superstitious and misogynistic. The decision to pull Borat's website, Borat.KZ, is ceremoniously noted in the report: "The government deemed as offensive the content of a satirical site controlled by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and revoked the .kz domain."
We think it's sweet that the country has risen to Borat's defense. If we're going to chuck dirt at all our international friends anyway we might as well stop pretending it's for a good reason and go on righteously rallying for fictional characters.
Humbert Humbert had it rough too. Who wants to throw the rock at Mother Russia?
Oops. That feel good Red campaign isn't working out after all. It seems it took up to an estimated $100 million to bring in $18 million for the charity effort. Not exactly the best ROI for a campaign of any kind. Groups such as Buy Less Crap which we wrote about here have derided the campaign claiming it's stupid to make people spend money to buy stuff when they could just give directly to charity far more efficiently. It's true. While many businesses may need a middle man to function properly, charity is most certainly not one of them.
The star studded campaign which was fronted by Steven Spielberg, Bono, Christy Turlingon, Chris Rock, Oprah Winfrey and others seems to have been a flop. Global Fund Private Sector Head Rajesh Anandan defended the campaign telling Advertising Age, "Red has done as much as we could have hoped for in the short time it has been up and running. The launch cost of this kind of campaign is going to be hugely front loaded. It's a very costly exercise."
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When in television, it goes without saying you might run into some odd policy meant in some way to protect you from The People or The People from you.
This is exactly what Conan discovered when he joked in passing about the existence of HornyManatee.com on air. An irate NBC called to let him know he can't just mention a site that doesn't exist, and now they have to purchase HornyManatee.com.
So that's exactly what they did. And instead of just redirecting it to NBC per the quid pro quo, they thought, why not pull out all the stops? The results make a good ice-breaker and they even managed to tie it to a cause, because you know how much people love cause-oriented consumerism.
Take the fetish tour for a complete manatee explosion.
That was disgusting. Forget we said that. In other news, and this is totally off-topic, we just found out that right whales have testes that weigh over one ton. HornyWhale.com, anybody? Wow, we've totally succeeded in grossing ourselves out. This is a new high. Or low.
On Tuesday, we reported Jennifer Love Hewitt would be reprising her role as Hanes spokeswoman to promote the company's All-Over Comfort Bra. Hewitt will appear in :15 and :30 commercials as well as in print. The television commercials, breaking tonight on American Idol, feature Hewitt struggling with ill-fitting bras during a photo shoot until she she finds the perfect Hanes bra. The entire campaign will direct people to www.hanes.com/photoshoot for additional behind-the-scenes footage and commercial outtakes, an interactive "Bra Toss" game and sweepstakes for consumers, as well as a blog where consumers can vent about their biggest bra challenges.
You can see the new commercial, view the out takes, play the game, share bad bra stories and see more of Jennifer Love Hewitt in all her glory here.
Now if ad*itive and Reebok had chosen, oh, say, Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan instead of Scarlett Johansson for the company's new Scarlett Hearts apparel and footwear campaign which carries the headline, "I Am More Than A Cover Story," the ad might have carried more weight. While Scarlett is certainly cover story material, it's not like she captures the mind of America like some of the more famous starlets we have.
She's much better suited to the new Disney World campaign that just broke in GQ and other mags in which she appears as Cinderella along with Beyonce Knwles as Alice, Lyle Lovett as the March Hare, Oliver Platt as the Mad Hatter and David Beckham as Prince Philip.
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